E-1 Thank you, Brother Neville. I noticed they kept moving the little microphone, or the volume. Can you hear me all right? That’s fine. The…Thank you.
The little disturbance, just a few moments ago, was, a brother parked his car in the wrong place out here, and the people, I think, want him to move it. That’s what it was. And he…
[Brother Gene Goad speaks to Brother Branham about the microphones—Ed.] This one over here? How about me bringing this off? You can hear me all right? I…That’s is the Kentucky saying, “We were barking up the wrong bush.” I was looking into this microphone, and this is supposed to be the one. That’s fine. Thank you, Brother Gene. Now, today, it’s…
E-2 We’re happy to report of the meeting at—at Middletown, Ohio, last week, or week before last, it is, now. That was a glorious time for us. We had…Oh, the congregations wasn’t so big. But it was out in the country at a place they call the Chatauqua, way out, eight or nine miles out of the city. But the—the seating was packed out, and it held a few thousand people. I’m not very much on estimating crowds. And so the main thing, was, Jesus met with us, and that’s what the good part. And it brought great results, to Who we give praise, the Lord God, for doing this for us.
E-3 And there was some of the finest people that I ever met in my life, in that country. And being that we’re so close to the border here, I might say this, they were ninety-nine percent Kentuckians. Everything up there was Kentucky. Brother Sullivan said, “Brother Branham,” he said, “do you know, all, about all this little valley runs up through here, is Kentucky?”
And I said, “I—I didn’t know that.”
He said, “Yes, they are.”
E-4 And one night in the meeting I just happened to mention, “How many is here from Kentucky, raise up your hands.” I looked around, I thought, “Is anybody from anywhere else?” Just all straight, Kentucky.
E-5 And the results was marvelous, so many reports! There was a—a gentleman, yesterday, who was coming through, passed by and told me of some things that had taken place, and letters coming in, and different testimonies. And then there was…
E-6 There’s a gentleman back here taking the recordings just now, and he said, on a certain night, I believe he said the “last night,” when I was preaching on the little eagle. And he said that…In the line of the discernments, or may have been in the congregation, I wouldn’t say just which, but there was a man who came up from the audience. And the Holy Spirit begin to talk to him, and told him that he was not from that country, but he was from Indiana, some place up in Indiana. And said that, “You are not standing here for yourself. You’re standing here for a little baby of yours, just a few months old, maybe three months,” and something like that. And it was going to be operated, and the heart had to be taken out. And it was such a—a pitiful condition; its little lungs had swollen up, his chest; his little stomach had dropped way in. And told him to go home, not to doubt; but if he wouldn’t doubt, he would find his baby all right.
E-7 Now, the witness is just in the next room here now, and maybe the baby in the audience, for all I know. The little baby’s lungs went down normal, and the little stomach came up normal. And the man who is taking the records in here, of one of the tapes this morning, brought the mother, the father, and his…this tape recorder’s neighbor, and brought them in, and brought the baby, and set the baby across the room, and played the tape, what was THUS SAITH THE LORD. And he said that when they got to the spot where the gentleman came to present himself at the platform, said, “The Holy Spirit came into the room, for there set the little baby right there, cooing and playing, and going on.” Didn’t need no operation. The doctors didn’t have to operate. The Lord operated on the baby, with His great, great Power. And the little baby sitting there, playing on the little bed, and—and the mother and father sitting there, and the neighbor that might have been a little skeptic of the whole thing; there was the Presence. If that isn’t apostolic faith, I don’t know what is.
E-8 You know, the Bible said, when Jesus had, through the apostle Peter and John, had healed the lame man at the gate, “They could not say nothing against it, because the man was standing there as a witness.” So, Christ still lives. Praise be to His Name. What a comfort it is in these days! Now, that’s just one of the many testimony. But what it is in this day, to find out that the same God, with the same marvelous actions, the same things that He did, He does it just the same way today, because He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. We are grateful to have the privilege to be assembled this morning in His Name.
E-9 Now, pray for us as we journey from place to place, to serve the Lord in the capacity that He’ll call us. And we’re glad that there is not only from the tabernacle here, but from all around, over the country.
E-10 Thank you, sister. That was a loyal thing. I know that the great God of Heaven seen you do the same thing. A lady, quite a bit younger than another, sitting here. And a woman that has been on the field for the Lord, years before I was born, her and her husband; fifty-some-odd years, preaching the Gospel. She working in a coal mine, to support him on a field, to preach the Gospel I’m standing for. The elderly woman was sitting in front, with no fan, wiping the perspiration from her face; a young woman gets up and comes and brings her her fan. So, I tell you, I’m glad to be assembled this morning with people like that, makes me glad that I am a Christian, and be assembled with Christian people.
E-11 Now it’s very hot in our country, and all over the country now. And we’re looking forward to the coming of the autumn, when it will be cooler. Our next big meeting that we know of is in San Jose, California. That’s where we was on the fairgrounds for a few days, and there was such a gathering, we could nothing like take care of them. And the same groups are sponsoring the meetings coming now at the fairgrounds at San Jose. And we are trusting that if you live near there, or friends, write and tell them to be at the meeting. If not, be praying for us.
E-12 Now, today, I mentioned that I was to be here this morning, to join in prayers and in supplications to the Lord, with all you peoples. And if there is strangers in our midst, we’re sorry that our building is not air conditioned, but we are just a poor church, in the goods of the world, but rich in the Faith in the Kingdom of God. And we welcome you for this short visit, pray that you’ll come back and be with us again. Someday we hope to have a better church.
E-13 We’re not very much on church buildings in these days, because we truly believe, with all our heart, the Lord Jesus is coming soon. And when missionaries are on the field, preaching the Gospel, with no shoes on, eating one meal a day, how can we build a million-dollar church in the face of that? I—I just can’t see it, and then saying, “The Lord is coming soon.” Let’s get into the field and do what we can in this generation. If there is another, let…They’ll answer for theirs; we’ll have to answer for this one. Just can’t go those million-dollar buildings, and so forth, after being on the field and see it.
E-14 Now, it’s nice. I think the house of the Lord should be nice. And it should be a—a sacred little spot. Make it as comfortable and nice as possible, but not anything to extremes, because we don’t understand that.
E-15 Now before we pray and read the Scriptures, I wanted to give a…not preach this morning, but give a lecture on the Scriptures. And usually coming…I only do this in my own church, and we are in our church. We’re not a denomination. We are interdenominational, by nature, and are not affiliated with any churches in the lines of denomination, but are associated with all believers of all denominations and all peoples throughout all the world. Our little church, this morning, is known all over the world. The tapes that you…These Messages, just as chopped up as they are, yet we are supporting, on mission fields, (how many different foreign nations?) nineteen foreign nations, just on tapes alone.
E-16 Nineteen different nations are taking the Messages and translating them. Someone, as I am preaching, someone stand there preaching right with it. And they’re going into the huts and the places out where God is not even known, and preaching to the heathen, and in to the natives of Africa and South America, and all around the world, and hundreds times hundreds are coming to the Lord. Many are being healed. And that’s the reason that we feel that it is all important to press the Message, not in big buildings and so forth.
E-17 And then when I’m here, I just have lectures on the Scripture. But, out in the field, I don’t preach any church Doctrines, because, doing so, it makes it hard. The peoples will say my “Doctrine is not right,” or something like that. And if you preach one…If I preach the Methodist doctrine, the Baptists will disagree with me. If I preach the Baptist’s, then the Lutheran will disagree. If I preach the Pentecostal, then the Nazarenes will disagree. If I preach the Nazarene, then the church of God will disagree. So, you see, you have to take a stand for something, but, in the scope of the field of service, we just welcome every believer, no matter what your creed or denomination is. As long as you are born again of the Spirit of God, you are our brother and sister. And we intend to always keep it thus.
E-18 And then, if the Lord willing, today, I want to preach, in our church, our church stand on Bible Doctrine, what the church stands for, and why we do this. And doing so, we are bound to create or…we do not mean to, but we might create questions in someone’s mind, say, “Well, I never was taught to such, or to believe It in such-and-such a way.” [Brother Branham says, “Thank you,” to someone—Ed.]
E-19 And if it so happens that you’ll…your church doesn’t believe, or you do not believe just the things that we speak of as our church Doctrine, we trust that it will by no means bring an offense. Because, the very first step to successful Christianity, and to show that man has received the Holy Spirit, is humility, real God-given humility, that It must be given humbly. But, yet, a church without a Doctrine is just like a jellyfish; it has no backbone. So, we’ve got to have backbone in it. And not also backbone, but teeth, also, because the Church of God must eat the Bread of Life.
E-20 And we, in some of the statements that I might make, if I try to drive It down hard, now please do not misunderstand It. That, I’m not meaning to be rude, on lecturing on the Bible. But if I, through thirty years of search, taking no creeds or nothing but just the Word…There’s people here that’s Presbyterian, Catholic, Baptist, Pentecostal, Nazarene, church of God, Pilgrim Holiness, they’re all setting here. And I know that each church has its own creed, and I do not want to interrupt that, but I’m only trying to bring out the Scripture and make it with the Scripture. So then all—all will understand that it isn’t to be rude. It’s just to be with love and affections, and with mercy, and with the best that I know how to explain the Scriptures.
E-21 And now the subject this morning is going to be kind of a long subject, and I do not wish to hurry. I want to take my time for just what I’m going to say, and try to explain it, why that we say it.
E-22 So many times in the meetings, someone will say, “Well, what does he believe? Is he a Baptist, yet? Is he a Pentecostal? Does he believe in speaking with tongues? Or, is he this, or that? Is he a Eternal-securitist? Or, what is he?” And then you just make one mention of anything that you are, they’ll drop like hot potatoes. No matter, they won’t stop to listen, to take consideration, but they’ll drop you right quick.
E-23 Nowhere in my meetings, at any time, have I ever known of leaving discord among brethren. I always just preach the Coming of the Lord, salvation, and—and Divine healing. That doesn’t hurt any Full Gospel person.
E-24 Then in the church here, I have our own Doctrine. It leaks out amongst people who comes, and said, “Well, I…Brother Branham said so-and-so, those things.” Well, we’ve got to have a Doctrine.
E-25 Now, just recently at a meeting, when someone asked a group of ministers. My secretaries and them are present. Many, many letters come in, and said, “Does Brother Branham believe in the—the preserving or keeping, the security of the believer?” Well, I knowed, in a legalistic group that was asking that, it would be hard for me to say it; they would “hands off” right quick. And that doesn’t make a bit of difference whether you believe that or not; as long as you’re saved, that’s the main thing. And I didn’t say nothing. And sixteen different churches dropped out of the sponsorship, you see the…because that I refused to answer, on account of keeping fellowship with the peoples.
E-26 Now, in the church this morning, I want to explain why I believe what I believe.
Let us pray.
E-27 Lord, Who brought again Jesus from the dead, and has given Him to us as a Sacrifice of Your love to us, and by the washing of the water by the Word, He has sanctified a peculiar people, a called-out group, and we are waiting patiently for His Second Coming. And we know that, in the eyes of the peoples, there are many creeds and denominations. And, Father, God, we would pray that You would bless each and every one of them. And the stand that they stand for, though we might disagree with them in many things, yet, in principle, as Christians and as brethren, we stand shoulder to shoulder with them. And not only shoulder to shoulder, but heart to heart. In a day of indifference, when men are heady and high-minded, lovers of the pleasures of the world more than of God. We pray, O God, that the Holy Spirit will bind our hearts closer together, all, day by day. Heal the sick this morning, Lord.
E-28 There are those that are to enter into baptism of water. And we pray that Your Holy Spirit will fill them with (the) His Presence if they haven’t already received such. May they become sealed away from the things of the world, and filled with the Spirit of God, in Divine love of God, and with fellowship with all men.
E-29 Lord, down across the nations of the world, as You have sent me, a poor illiterate man. And yet, Lord, believing in my heart, of Thee, the things that I have believed and have been taught by the Bible, and confirmed by the Angel of the Lord Who stands present to confirm what’s said, if it be of God. Many times, people has thought me to be a compromiser. Thou art the judge of my heart. But as Paul of old, who even preached Judaism until he won the confidence of the people, and then preached Christ crucified; but first to win the confidence of the people, so his Message would be seasoned with salt. We pray, O Lord, that You’ll season our talks and our fellowship, with the Salt of the Spirit, with the Blood of the Lord Jesus, and make us the people that has been called, and that the world might look and watch our lives, and then become thirsty to be like us. Keep us humble, and filled with Thy love and Thy Spirit. For we ask it in the Name of Him Who prayed that we might be one, then, that all men would know that we were His children, when we have love one for the other. Amen.
E-30 Now, to you, I know it’s kind of warm. And if there’s—there’s a foot fan back here that they want to bring it anywhere, would seem better, it’s all right. I would just like to read some now from the Sacred Writings.
[Brother Neville says to Brother Branham, “This fan bother you?”—Ed.] No, sir. Not as long as it’s on the floor like that. I believe it’d be all right, Brother Neville.
E-31 I want you to turn with me in the Scriptures, to the Book of Joel, and then I have several places here that I’d like to read from, first, to get a lecture, some context for a lecture. First, in Joel, the 1st chapter, beginning with the 1st verse, and reading the 4th. And then in the 2nd chapter, the 25th to the 27th, we’ll read for a Scripture reading.
And the word of the Lord…came unto Joel the son of Pethuel.
Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all the inhabitants of the land. Has this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers?
Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation.
That which the palmerworm…left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust has left has the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm has left has the caterpiller eaten.
E-32 And then in the 25th to the 27th verse, of the 2nd chapter.
…I will restore unto you the years that the locust has eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpiller…palmerworm and caterpiller, the great army which I sent among you.
And ye shall eat in plenty, and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, that has dealt wondrously with you: and my people shall never be ashamed.
And you shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the Lord your God, and none else: and my people shall never be ashamed.
E-33 Then in the Book of Romans, and in the 1st chapter of Romans, and the 25th verse, I read this. We’ll take the 24th, also.
Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanliness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:
Who changed the truth of God unto a lie,…
E-34 And then in Romans, the 3rd chapter and the 4th verse. Romans 3rd, and the 4th verse, we read. The first phase of that 4th verse.
God forbid:…let God be true, and every man a liar;…
E-35 Now we are coming into a serious thought of subjects here. And now we…I believe that there will come a time of the restoring of all things that has been done wrong. And we are trying, with all that is within us, and other men are trying, such great evangelists as Billy Graham and Oral Roberts, and many other of the outstanding evangelists, ministers, pastors, who are loyal to their post, are trying to see a revival in our time. And you, the children of God, are praying for a revival in our time. Tens of thousands of prayers meet God every hour, for a revival in our time. And it is written in the Scriptures, “If the people that are called by My Name shall assemble themselves together, and will pray, then I’ll hear from Heaven.” Now, if the children of God are assembling themselves together and praying for a revival in our time, and revival is not coming, then there must be something wrong somewhere.
E-36 Now, remember, that, only anything can work as you work in the law of that thing. The cosmic forces can only move according to cosmic law. The planets can only move as they’re moved by the law of the planets. The sun can only rise according as the earth turns to the sun. And that there, is, everything has to work according to the law of its plan. For, God made all things, and made a law for that thing. And then it’s got to turn, and to work, and to operate according to the law of that item. It will not work correctly any other way.
E-37 Put a chain on a sprocket, and then put it on a round peg. You might be able to make a little bit of time. But the only way that you’ll ever make correct time with that chain, is to put a sprocket that equal to the sprocket that’s in the back of it, and then those little holes in that chain to meet, just exactly timed with the sprocket, then you can go somewhere.
E-38 And I’m sure that we got a wrong sprocket somewhere. The church is moving too slow for the hour we’re living in. There is something radically wrong. And it behooves us in this day, at the near Coming of the Lord, to sit down and study this and see what’s wrong, find the cause. You can never find a cure till you find the cause.
E-39 If a doctor, if you go into his office and you say, “I’m having headaches, and sick at my stomach,” and he gives you a little aspirin, or something, and sends you away, he’s just trying to get rid of you. A real, genuine doctor will diagnose that case until he finds what organ is out of order, then work from that organ.
E-40 That’s the way it is with the Kingdom of God. We’ve got to find out what’s wrong, then work from that. The Scriptures is like a doctor’s prescription.
E-41 A doctor, scientists who work hard to find a prescription, too, for the—the killing of a certain germ, disease that’s in your body, like typhoid fever, or—or some disease, that they can give you a serum that’ll kill that typhoid germ, and yet it has to be so carefully handled out. [Brother Branham speaks to someone about the fan—Ed.] So carefully handled out, until this: if there is not enough of it, it will not help the patient; and if there’s something else added, it might kill the patient. It’s got to be given by the druggist, just according to the prescription.
E-42 Therefore, if there’s something wrong in the church today, that it’s not progressing the way it should, it’s to my opinion that we ought to go back to the Prescription, find out just exactly what’s wrong, that this church is so sick that there is disease in our church, sin disease. Then we’ve got to find out what the Doctor prescribed, and see if our druggist pastors are giving us the right Prescription. And, remember, you can add something to a real close diagnosed Scripture, and kill the patient. And maybe, I don’t say we have, but what if some of our druggists has added something to God’s Prescription? If they have, they are killing the patient, letting them die in sin.
E-43 “Well, it’s,” you say, “well, if they was sincere!” No, that doesn’t excuse it.
E-44 A man, a druggist, give a man carbolic acid, here a few years ago, just as sincere as he could be, and a registered pharmacy, and it killed the man. Yet, he was sincere. There isn’t…Sincerity, I’ve seen sincerity amongst the heathens, that would make Christian sincerity look like something way back in the antique lines. Seen pagans that would lay their babies in the mouth of an alligator, to sacrifice it to a god of the waters. I couldn’t find that sincerity amongst Christians. I’ve seen people that would lay on spikes. And break the bones of their feet when they’re little children; I’ve seen them take babies and little fellows, and cut them and mark them over, and bleed them, and sometimes take their lives. Deep sincerity, but they’re wrong.
E-45 Now let’s find something. Job, or Joel, rather, I ga-…think he gave us a great background here. And that’s what we want to take for a reading. He said:
You tell—tell your children…let your children tell their children, and theirs another one, and so forth, to another generation, which will be the Gentiles. Tell Israel to keep telling it.
E-46 And now this Scripture that Joel spoke of is fulfilled today as we, the Gentiles, has received It. He said:
That what the palmerworm has left has the caterpiller eaten;…the caterpiller, the locust, and so forth.
E-47 And these insects, if you’ll get your book on insects, you’ll notice that that four different insects is the same-self insect in four different stages of its life. All of us know that a—that a—a cocoon is nothing but a caterpillar covered over, and it’s going to hatch out a butterfly; and a butterfly is a caterpillar before it hatches out. The palmerworm, the locust, and the so forth, is the same. It’s the same insect. Now whatever…
E-48 Now listen close. Whatever happened in the first place, with the insect of the palmerworm, it just become a caterpillar, later. And the caterpillar become a locust, later. And whatever it was that started in the beginning, is still the same thing that’s causing the trouble today. And let’s go back now in the Scriptures and find out what started.
E-49 Now, we know that we can only build a church, first, upon the material that God gave us to build it with. That’s all we have. And I think, before…I know This is strong, and It’s on tape, hundreds of people around the world will hear. But before we can ever have a building of the Church of God, we will have to restore back all those things that these insects has eaten out of It. We’ll have to go back and find out what the insects eat. And before this Vine of the Lord, the Grapevine…He’s the Vine; we’re the branches. And before we can ever find out, or the Church can stand in its formal and original power, we’ll have to go back and find out what the insects eat. And that Church will have to be restored back to that, or it will never stand in its power and glory of its first standing.
E-50 If the bark is tore off of a tree, we got to get bark back on it again. Grow the bark, first. You can’t have apples till you grow the bark. For, the bark is the sap line. The sap line is the life line.
E-51 And the Scriptures, God’s Holy Bible, is the Life line to any church. How could we ever bring up grape sap through sycamore bark? Just won’t work. We’ve got to have Grapevine bark. We’ve got to have the original bark. And there’s only one way that that bark can ever come back on the Vine, is when God grows it, Himself.
E-52 We can’t make some and put on it. It won’t work. No man-made scheme will ever work. It’ll take God’s way or it’ll never live. Man-made schemes will not work. You might wrap a rag around the tree, and say, “Let it grow.” A rag wasn’t God’s program. It’s got to be bark, life line, And when it comes from the roots, it’ll produce the same life that the tree had before the insects eat it.
E-53 No wonder we can’t have healing campaigns. No wonder the churches are tore up. No wonder one will say, “Oh, this, that, and the other,” so disagreed. No wonder there’s such isms among us, is because we can’t bear the real fruits of patience, longsuffering, goodness, meekness, gentleness. The Life line has been cut off from the Tree, and we’ll never bring it up through the creeds of some rag or any other substituted bark. It’ll take the power of Almighty God to grow that tree back to its condition again.
E-54 Did not Jesus say, and the Scriptures has said, “Have eyes and can’t see, have ears and can’t hear”? They just can’t do it. And no man can come to God, or to Christ, until God reveals it to him.
E-55 The other day I was talking, and we were thinking of Scripture. I said, “Why can’t people see That?” I said, “There it is,” and I happened to think. I don’t care how clear It is, how much the Scripture teaches It, you’ll never be able to see It until God Himself shows It to you; don’t care how clear It is. And the whole Bible is built, and the whole Church of the living God, is built upon a spiritual revelation of the Word. Why did Abel offer a more excellent sacrifice than Cain? Why didn’t Abel follow Cain; he had the most beautiful church? But it was revealed to him.
E-56 When Jesus came from Mount Transfiguration, and they said…
“Who does man say I the Son of man am?”
E-57 “One said ‘Elias,’ and one said You’re ‘the prophet,’ and so forth.”
He said, “But who do you say I am?”
Peter said, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
E-58 He said, “Blessed art thou, Simon, the son of Jonas, for flesh and blood never revealed this to you. You never learned it with some books, or by some seminary, or some station of man-made scheme. But My Father in Heaven has revealed that to you, and upon this rock I’ll build My Church, and the gates of hell cannot prevail against It.” There you are, spiritual revelation of the Word of God.
E-59 In Matthew 11, I believe it is, or 12, somewhere along there, it is written, that said, “Though Jesus had done so many miracles, so many signs that He was the Messiah, yet the people could not believe it. Because Isaiah said, ‘They got eyes and they can’t see. They got ears and they can’t hear.’” How? Though they were scholars, though they were top religionists; they were holy, and without fault and without blame. If they were found one iota wrong, they were stoned, without mercy. No man could lay a finger on that. They studied the Scriptures, day and night, generation after generation, and still God had blinded their eyes.
Say, “God did?” That’s what He said.
E-60 God does what He wants to. We cannot tell Him what to do. Did not Paul, in the Book of the Romans, the 8th chapter, say that, “God raised up Pharaoh and hardened his heart, blinded his eyes, for this same purpose, that His will might be worked”? Was not Esau? And Jacob…Esau, refused, before the boy was ever born; God despised him. You see, it’s all working according to God’s great predestination. He’s not One that’s asleep. He knows exactly.
E-61 And we judge men according to their…seem like, their honesty or their sincerity. We judge churches according to their progress. We join, we take evangelists, because that they’re great. That isn’t It.
E-62 “Heavens and earth will pass away, but My Word shall never pass away.”
E-63 What the palmerworm has left, has the caterpillar eaten. There’s something wrong, somewhere, ’cause God’s Word is just as Eternal as He is Eternal. And God’s Word can no more fail than God can fail, Himself. Now, there’s something wrong, somewhere.
E-64 So let’s go back now. The background now we have laid. Let’s go back, take our text of Romans 3:4, “Let every man’s word be a lie, and God’s Word the Truth.”
E-65 I’m going to drive this down, and I want you to listen. “Let it be God, Truth.” Let’s line up with what God said, regardless of what anybody else said. I want to use four different things of what I see in the Scripture, that these insects has eat off of the Church of the living God, and has got the Vine of God crippled, or stunted.
E-66 We’ll admit, you Methodists will admit, you Baptists will admit, you Presbyterians, you Pentecostals, you Nazarene, you all admit, the tabernacle here admits, “There’s something wrong.” And we, the tabernacle, is just as guilty as the rest, for, “He that knoweth to do good, and do it not, to him it’s sin.”
E-67 Now let’s go back. And I want to name four things, just as Scriptural as I know how to be, that these insects has eaten from the Church, from Its first, original condition.
E-68 Now, the first thing, the church was established on the Day of Pentecost. Peter preached the—the inauguration sermon at the baccalaureate service, when the Church was born. The Christian Church was born on the Day of Pentecost. And if God is infinite, infinite, and cannot change, His Church must remain as It was at the beginning. Do you admit that? [Congregation says, “Amen”—Ed.] The Church must ever remain the same as It was.
E-69 But man has tinkered with It, put their own interpretations in It. Don’t you never try to interpret the Word of God. Say just what It says. Don’t care how It is, so just line up with It, that’s all. Don’t change the Word. The Bible said, that, “The Scripture is not any private interpretation.” We have no right to say these things; we just got to read It and say just exactly like It says, and believe It the same way. I don’t care how ridiculous It seems; believe It, anyhow.
E-70 The pulpit is no place for a joke. It’s a place for sincerity. I do not mean this to be joking. I mean this to quote something that was told me. Said, there was an old colored brother down in the south, packed a Bible, and his boss was making fun of him. He said, “You can’t read It; what do you pack It for?”
E-71 He said, “I pack It because I believe It.” That’s a good reason. “I can’t read It, but I know there’s something in It. It’s right.” Said, “I even believe the ‘civer’ on the outside of It. It’s got ‘Holy Bible’ wrote on it. I believe It.”
E-72 He said, “Anything that Bible would say do, I guess you’d do it?”
E-73 He said, “Yes, sir. If you read it out of the Bible, I’ll do it if it’s a Commandment of God.”
E-74 He said, “Then what if I read out of that Bible, and told you the Lord said for you to jump through that wall there, that big stone wall? How in the world would you ever jump through the stone wall if there’s no hole in it?”
E-75 He said, “If you read that out of the Bible, and the Lord told me to jump, He would have the hole there when I got there.” And that’s right.
E-76 God says so, no matter how ridiculous It seems, you step forward on It. It’s up to God to take care of the rest of it, that’s His business. It’s your business to step.
E-77 Now one of the first things that I’d like to speak to you for these few minutes. After we have found out that the foundation must be original, it must go back to the foundation, it must go back to where it was a Vine. If something is wrong with it, and the Vine is not operating right, let’s go back and find out what’s wrong.
E-78 Now, one of the first things that I’d like to mention, is that something has gone from our church, one of the main things, is Faith. The people don’t have Faith today like they had in that day. Some kind of a cankerworm, of some sort, has got in and eat off the Life line of Faith. They changed It. Today their faith rests upon some kind of a—of a big church denomination. But Jude told us, in Jude the 3rd verse. It said:
Beloved,…I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you…(I have It here before me.)…and to exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the faith (not a faith; the Faith) that was once delivered unto the saints. (That was thirty-three years before this, this Faith was delivered.)
E-79 Now, not…The people say, “Oh, That’s against my faith.”
There’s only one Faith. “One Lord, one Faith, and one Baptism.” You might have a faith, but we want the Faith. Earnestly contend, that’s, “argue for,” standing, “stand up for.”
…earnestly contend for the faith that was once delivered to the saints.
E-80 When were they called saints? When they were sanctified. The Holy Spirit sanctified them. They were called saints. Now Jude says, a brother, foster brother of Jesus, “I want you to earnestly contend for the Faith that was once delivered to the saints. Don’t never let that Faith drop.” [Brother Branham knocks on the pulpit three times—Ed.]
E-81 And the Faith of the saints was not in creeds, not in denominations, not in church buildings, not in associations, but it was in the Presence of the living God. They had Faith to heal the sick, cast out devils, do miracles. All the great promises that Jesus made, that first church held onto That. It was the Life line.
E-82 Listen here. Listen close to what I want to tell you. The ever-Presence of the living God is the Life line of any church or any bunch of people, the ever-Presence of the living God to perform, and to do, and to act, and to live with the people as He did at the beginning. If the Presence of the living God brought a pentecost with power, with signs, with wonders, brought a people so full of the Glory of God till they shouted and spoke with other languages, and went and martyrs for the Faith, let’s earnestly contend for that Faith until death shall set us free. Earnestly contend for It. We will not compromise, upon reading books, taking some man-made theology. We’ll not compromise, upon some creeds or some prayer books, or something somebody else has said.
My Faith is built on nothing lesS
Than Jesus’ Blood with righteousness;
All around my soul gives way,
Then He’s all my hope and stay.
For on Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
All other grounds is sinking sands.
E-83 No creed but Christ, no law but love, and no book but the Bible. No creed books! The Bible has to say it. The Bible has to not only say It, but say It every time the same, must say It from Genesis to Revelations. It must go in every little web, and weave into every part of the Word. If it doesn’t, then I’ve got the wrong interpretation of It, ’cause God cannot dispute His Own Word. If It doesn’t say the same thing to every little fiber!
E-84 If this shirt here, it’s wove throughout with the same fiber, it’s what makes it what it is. It’s what makes it white.
E-85 That’s what the Church is. If it’s going to be a white Church, born again, without spot, without wrinkle, it’s got to be woven with the same kind of a fiber that it started off with, on the Day of Pentecost, a Holy Ghost experience, burning and weaving. You cannot add a piece of rotten goods. You cannot add a piece of burlap sack to it. It won’t work. It’ll mar it.
E-86 Some kind of a little old cankerworm has come in and eaten that Faith off. They stand up and say, “I believe in a holy church. The holy Roman Catholic church, I believe in.”
E-87 I believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I believe He’s the same yesterday, today, and forever, and the Faith and the Power of His resurrection lives within me today. Because He lives, I live also. Not because of a creed, not because of a denomination; but because Christ lives. And I’m in Christ, I live by Him, and with Him, and I live through Him. And His Life fibers Itself through me. If It don’t, then I can’t call myself His. He just don’t take my head; He takes my heart, my movements, my everything, and weaves Hisself into it.
E-88 He weaves Hisself into the Word. The Word can’t say one thing, one place, and something else this other place. And I know It’s written like that. It’s written that way for a purpose. Jesus said so, and thanked God, that He—He had “hid it from the eyes of the wise and prudent, and would reveal it to babes such as would learn.” That’s God’s purpose in doing so. He…
E-89 Why did He ever let a sinner come? He had to let a sinner come, for the purpose of Him being a Saviour. He’s greater than a sin. He…wouldn’t had to be a sin, He wouldn’t had to let Satan make the first sin. But the reason Satan created the first sin, or perverted the righteousness, to sin, the reason he did it, so God could be a Saviour. He let the man get sick, because He’s a Healer. And He has to be just, and He has to put the Tree of Life and the tree of death before every man, like He did Adam and Eve, or He did wrong when He put it before Adam and Eve. Now it’s up to you.
E-90 Now notice Faith, the true Faith, the real Faith, “the Faith.” Now we take our churches today, look at us, look at our Pentecostal people, look at our Baptist people, our Presbyterians, Nazarenes, Pilgrim Holiness, and the Branham Tabernacle, all of us, we’re guilty, not earnestly contending for that Faith.
E-91 A little fuss can come up in the church, in the Branham Tabernacle. I’m at home. I can talk about you now. And they’ll form a little clique, and one get on one side and one on the other. Is that contending for the Faith that was once delivered to the saints? Does that sound like the apostolic Doctrine? No, sir, brother. They had an Ananias and Sapphira case. God is still the same God. And we seen that proven. No earnestly contending.
E-92 The people go out today and say, “Well, my faith don’t teach the miracles. They teach that the days of miracles is passed.” Then you’re not contending for the Faith that was once delivered to the saints.
E-93 [Blank spot on tape—Ed.]…bunch of fanaticism, myself. But I believe that there’s a real, genuine gift of the Holy Ghost, and we earnestly contend for That. That’s right. We believe It. Saints speak with tongues.
E-94 They say, “I don’t believe in Divine healing.” I don’t believe in a bunch of fanaticism. But we do believe there is a God, that He heals the sick, that He’s the same yesterday, today, and forever.
E-95 I’ve seen a lots called discernment, I don’t believe in. But I know there’s truly a discerning Spirit of God, the gift of knowledge, that calls and speaks, and It’s perfect every time. We’re earnestly contending for That, that Faith that was once delivered to the saints.
E-96 I know there’s dreams, and stomach-fuls of—of fresh meats, or are full of something another, that cause you have nightmares. You jump up and call it a vision.
E-97 There’s a real, genuine vision of God. Right! God promised it. “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever.” He does that, and it never fails. Bible said, “If there be one among you, who is spiritual, or a prophet, and let him speak; and what he says, if it comes to pass, then hear him, for I’m with him. If it don’t, don’t hear him, ’cause he’s a false prophet.” God can’t lie. God tells the truth, all the time. Let it be so. Now we find that that’s true. There is those things that…
E-98 Look at Paul, when out there that night, all hopes was gone, the devil laughing on every glee, glean his teeth on every time the waves jumped up and the lightning struck, “I’ll sink that apostle out here,” little old ship, waterlogged. And days and days, fourteen days and nights, the stars never even shined; and how that little old ship tossed about. Him walking around, dragging a chain behind him, for preaching the Gospel. Hallelujah!
E-99 And we can’t even let nobody talk about us lest we have to blow up like a toadfrog eating buckshot. We’re always carrying on about something. And then say we’re earnestly contending for the Faith? The Branham Tabernacle needs a whole lot to be straightened out, first, so does the Pentecostals, and the Baptists, and the Nazarenes. That’s the reason we’re not getting anywhere, we’re not honest and sincere. We’ve ever come face to face with that Thing there, that makes us unmoveable, always abounding in God, the Faith that was once delivered to the saints.
E-100 The old caterpillar come in, and cankerworm, and eat it off. “All the days of miracles is passed. You don’t have to do This. You don’t have to do That.”
E-101 If God brought forth His first branch out of that Vine, was a pentecostal branch, with power, visions, revelations, healings, sanctification, Holy Spirit, the next branch will be the same thing. Certainly will. Every time it…every time that Vine puts forth a branch, it’ll be exactly like the one was at the first place. You…As I said last night, talking to a group of brothers: you can’t get a grapevine to bear pumpkins. You can’t get a pumpkin vine to bear grapes. That’s true. It’s whatever the life is in that vine, it produces it.
E-102 And if Christ is in that Vine, and the Life of Christ is in that person, it’ll be like Jesus, it’ll bear the fruits of Him. It’s His Spirit. It can’t do nothing else but do it. It’s got to produce that Life, ’cause it’s the same Life. You just can’t produce anything else. It’ll act like Him. It’ll talk like Him. It’ll walk like Him. It’ll heal like Him. It’ll see visions like Him. It’ll produce exactly His Life, perfectly, every time, because It’s His Life.
E-103 You’re just a shell. A man is just like a water pipe. He’s not the Water; he’s just the pipe. Take the Water out of him, he’ll rust. Well, that’s what’s the matter today. There’s too many of us rusting, that once had an experience. Keep the Water flowing, that’s what keeps the Life line going.
E-104 I heard a fellow preaching one time, said there was a sow in the wallow, makes the water all muddy. The best thing…The Bible speaks of that. Get the hog out of the wallow. You get down here, a nice spring, and down here somewhere with the big springs pouring out, up there on the mountain; the water is all muddy, you better get the hogs out of it, so the water will clear up.
E-105 There’s a lot of things we got to get out, before the Waters will ever come from the Fountain filled with Blood drawn from Emmanuel’s veins, where sinners plunged beneath the flood lose all their guilty stains, their indifferences and chattering, and so forth.
E-106 Sixteen ministers, because they believe…They thought that I believed that God kept His Church and preserved His Church. The Scripture said, “He that heareth My Word,” not him that makes out he hears It. That’s the one that God has opened his eyes and ears, to hear. No man can do it till God opens his eyes and ears. “He that heareth My Words and believeth on Him that sent Me, has everlasting Life, and shall never come to the Judgment, but has already passed from death unto Life.” What’s going to happen to him? Did God lie or did He tell the Truth?
E-107 Is man right, or, “Oh, you can get the Holy Ghost and be saved, and tomorrow you can be lost and go to hell”? Don’t you never believe that tommyrot. That’s a lie.
E-108 You’re ever born again, your whole nature is fixed different. If a man ever is planted in Christ, and heeded the Life of the Grapevine’s, coming through him, he’ll never bear pumpkins no more. You might tie one on him, but he knows something is wrong. He’ll lay there and groan till it’s taken off of him. It’s too much weight for him; bows him down too close to the ground. He likes to grow up. Can’t hang a pumpkin on a Grapevine.
E-109 Notice. Oh! “Contending for the Faith,” that was, “earnestly contending.” Not just contending, but, “earnestly contending,” between Life and death. We’ll jump on to another one. You can stay a long time on that one.
E-110 The next thing that we’d like to say for, is, brotherly love has been eaten away from the vine. Brotherly love! Jesus said, “This will all men know you’re My disciples, when you have love, one for another.”
E-111 Well, now let’s just take an example. If a man don’t believe the same as I do, I’ll go right into his congregation and preach with him, just preach what he believes, and go right ahead and let it go, ’cause I love him. By their fruits you know them. If they don’t believe It, and they haven’t got brotherly love, they drop out, disagree, fall away, “I’ll have nothing to do with It.” Why don’t you come to me and talk to me about It? You don’t know what I believe. See? What difference does it make, anyhow, what I believe? It’s Who I believe: Jesus Christ. I’ve never left a meeting, yet, with bad taste, as I know of. But, you see, brotherly love has been all discarded.
E-112 And Paul seen it, First Corinthians 13, he said, “Let brotherly love continue.” But brotherly love has been taken away. Now watch. Every time…
E-113 Now, listen close now, we’re going into strong meats. Every time that the devil takes something off of the tree, we’ll say the bark, the insect eats the bark off, he puts an old man-made rag around it, to take Its place. Put a rag around a sap line of a tree, it won’t send the sap on up into the fruits of the tree. It won’t bear any fruits. It’ll drop right back down to the ground. And that’s the reason, today, we can’t have revival in our day, is too much man-made dogma. The Life line won’t walk through an old rag. It’ll sap, Life will drop right back down to the ground. That’s the reason our revivals fail.
E-114 As Billy Graham said the other day, he was in England, where he had a great revival. And the very place where he was preaching, he had to take his wife from the parks because the men and women living immorally right out in the parks. What was the matter? Man-made rags in the stead of God-grown bark. It won’t carry the Life.
E-115 A church that’s wrapped around a man-made creed, will not send the Power of God up into the branches. It’ll say, “The days of miracles is passed,” and drop It flat on the ground. [Brother Branham knocks on the pulpit four times—Ed.] Amen. I know you think I’m crazy; but, if I am, let me alone, I feel good this way. See? It’ll drop the Word of God.
E-116 If God says here, “I’m the Lord. I never change.”
E-117 “Well, He’s changed in this day,” says the rag. Drops It down. Where it first started was in the early age, when they had no denominations, and man has tried to restore brotherhood through denominations. Brotherly love has been cut off because of denominations.
E-118 Show me one time that God ever had an organization or a denomination, and ever did have His Church in a denomination, or ever a denomination that ever raised that didn’t fall and never rise again. Now, I’ve been reading since I come from up there, on this very subject. I’ve read the Foxe Book Of The Martyrs. I’ve read Josephus’ early writing. I read Hislop’s Two Babylons. I’ve read the Early Ages by Pember-man, oh, and the Nicene Fathers, and just before the Nicene Council, after Pentecost. And there has never been a denomination that God ever ordained in the Bible. [Brother Branham knocks on the pulpit four times—Ed.] Then when we ordained and made denominations, we got out of the will of God.
E-119 A cankerworm, called “denomination,” eat off the original bark of brotherly love, and denominated it, by carrying a rag around it. And the Life of God comes right up through the roots here, the Root and the Offspring of David, when It begins to come up through the Holy Spirit; then the denomination said, “The days of miracles is passed. You don’t have to speak with tongues today. There’s no such a thing as the baptism of the Holy Ghost. There’s no Divine healing. That was for an age gone. It’s gone, long ago.” And here’s the branches up here, is suffering, the fruits.
E-120 A good, healthy tree don’t have to be sprayed. Why we spraying over and over and over, for contamination of worms? Why we doing it for? Is because the tree is not healthy. What’s the matter it’s not healthy? Creeds and denominations has eat the Life line out of it. Absolutely! Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, Pentecostals, eat the Life line out of the tree, trying to substitute a denomination, to bring all men under politics. God don’t want us joined together under politics and creeds. We are joined together by the Holy Spirit, God’s original, tears out the sin of our heart, and makes us all one in Christ Jesus. That’s true, my brother. That’s true, my sister.
E-121 That started in the early ages after the death of Christ, and the resurrection, after the death of the apostles. Three hundred years later, they brought the Nicene Council in. That’s when they formed the first organization, which was the Catholic church. Means, catholic means “universal.” From the Catholic, the church come out Luther; from Luther, come out Wesley; from Wesley, come out Pentecost. All down, the little—little bypasses around, the other little ones, like, oh, Nazarene, Pilgrim Holiness, and so forth, Baptist, and all that. They all come out of that, all right in the same cahoots, denomination. When God gives a church a blessing, or a group of people, quickly they draw a little fence around it, and here’s where they take their stand. God wants to tear down every fence.
E-122 I remember when I first went West. It was the times of discing up, Kansas, and was putting wheat in there. I’d see them old cowboys that never knowed nothing about a tractor or—or anything, or raising any wheat. All they know was herding cattle. And we went to bringing in automobiles, and putting golf courses, and wearing these little old knee pants they used to wear to play golf in, and all that stuff like that. I’d see them old men with the long, white hair hanging under their hat, see them bring in binders and wheat grower, and stuff like that, stick his foot in the saddle, and pull his hat down. Put fences around the place; he couldn’t stand that. He knowed nothing about being fenced in. He was on the range, by God and himself. The gray hairs hanging under his hat like that; crying, tears. Just pull it down, say, “I can’t stand these things.” Ride on towards the setting of the sun.
E-123 God help us today to have pilgrims that won’t stand to be fenced in by denomination and creeds, and ride towards the setting of the sun; with a Faith that’s unmoveable, that was once given to the saints; with a brotherly love that breaks all creeds and fences down, and say, “We are brethren. We are one in Christ Jesus. Whatever God says, we say ‘amen’ behind It.” Give us that type of men.
E-124 Yeah, creeds! Then they formed what they call the—the Pre-Nicene Father. They got together, in this they formed a council. In the council was hatched out the Catholic church, which means “the universal church,” tore off all the little churches around where God was dealing, and forced them into one church and one religion.
E-125 They put an ox on one arm, ox on the other, hang a crucifix before a man, tell him “kiss it or…and bow down, to receive Catholic religion,” or they start one ox one way, and one the other, and pull him apart. Took a woman and take her hair and put it in a barrel of pitch, and ask her if she’d kiss this crucifix; she’d either do it, and bow to Catholic religion, or they’d light the hair on her head and burn her up. Put them on the stakes and everything else. Put them in what they call the iron woman, press them pegs, trying to get them to kiss the crucifix, embrace what they call “Christian religion,” and grind them right into the dust.
E-126 The martyrs stood there without a bat in his eye. He knowed where he was standing. He knowed Who he had believed. He was able, knowing This, that God could raise him up at the last day, ’cause He promised it. Before he would bow down to any man-made, old dirty rag sap lines, he would die on the stump. Hallelujah!
E-127 Let me die the same place. If my God doesn’t come in my generation, I’ll die on the stump where the cankerworms eat it to, believing that Jesus Christ and His Church and His Word is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Might not be able to produce it out, in all these branches, because old sap lines out here, of denomination and creed, cut me off and drop me like a hot potato. That might be true. But I’ll stand loyal on the stump and cry, that, “The hour will come, God will restore His Church, till Its former condition.”
E-128 This may hurt. Third thing. I don’t want it to. Watch one of the great sap lines they cut off. And during that time of the organization, that’s what knocked the sap line, to begin with. The first place, if they’d have had brotherly love among one another, they’d never need an organization. And then when they seen they couldn’t have…They wasn’t going to have brotherly love, or they thought they wasn’t. “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.” Instead of taking God’s Word, they had an organization.
E-129 Luther come out of that organization. Five hundred and fifty years later, come out. What did he do? Turned right around, done the same thing they did. Right out of that come Calvin. Right out of there come Wesley. Right out of Wesley come the Baptists, Presbyterians, on down to the Pentecostals. And the Pentecostals, after the Nazarene comes the Pentecostal. And after Pentecostal, what will? I hope the Coming of Christ. Cause, the Pentecostal done the very same thing that the rest of them done.
E-130 Revelation 12 says that they would do it. She was a whore, and they were prostitutes. They were “harlots.” The Catholic church, “she,” said was a “whore,” in the Bible, w-h-o-r-e. First Corinthians 12 said so. And said, “her daughters.” Now, they cannot be men. He never said “her sons.” Said, “her daughters.” Churches are represented in the Bible as women. And her daughters were prostitutes, see, the same thing. What kind? Well, how, prostitute? Committing spiritual fornication against God’s Word. Holding onto a denominational rag instead of standing earnestly for the Faith that was once delivered to the saints, It says, instead of going back and taking the Word of God.
E-131 I talked to a priest here not long ago. He said, “I don’t care what the Bible says. We’re the church.”
I said, “That’s the Word of God.”
Said, “We made it.”
E-132 I said, “Why’d it change so much? You ain’t got one thing in your church, that this Bible says, that you teach.” I was telling him I baptized a girl in the Name of Jesus Christ.
He said, “You know, the Catholic church used to do that.”
I said, “When? There’s every history of the churches, that I know of, laying right there.”
He said, “We believe our catechism.”
I said, “What about the history?”
E-133 Said, “We don’t care what history said. We believe the catechism.”
E-134 I said, “How you know there was a George Washington and Abraham Lincoln? How did you know there was a pilgrim fathers?”
“Because we believe our history.”
E-135 I said, “There’s no place that the Catholic church was ever organized till three hundred and sixty years after the death of the last apostle.” I said, “And the Catholic church wasn’t known. They did not baptize in the Name of Jesus Christ, ’cause they was the very first foundation of bringing in the false baptism. And she’s…”
E-136 He said, “Well, now wait a minute.” He said, “We have a right. We’re the church. We do what we want to because God is in His church.”
I said, “God is in His Word, not in His church.”
E-137 If the church disagrees with the Word, then there’s something wrong. “Let My Word be true, and every other man’s word a lie.” That’s right. God’s Word being true. Make His Word right. Go back to His Word. See what the cankerworm eaten?
E-138 Now, during the time of the early Nicene fathers. Gene, you just took it, too. The great Nicene Council produced a great argument, on account of, “Was there one God or was there three Gods; Father, being one; Son, being two; God the Holy Ghost, being three?” And they adopted that there was “three Gods.” Now, if you don’t believe that, I’ll read it to you right now out of the Nicene Council, Nicene Fathers. They did it, “three Gods.”
E-139 There’s one God. There’s only One. He’s Jehovah God, the great I AM; the Alpha, Omega; the Beginning and the End.
E-140 They’ve had now, in order to do that, they had to get something to go with it. In order to do that, they tried to say, “God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost.” Now, absolutely, there’s no such a thing. It’s not three Gods. That’s heathenism.
There is three offices of the same God. The Fatherhood…
E-141 When God dwelt alone, holy; His Laws, His righteousness makes Him holy. He wanted to be in man. He wanted to worship with man. He wanted man to worship Him. He had to come to man. And then when He did, He created; overshadowed a little virgin named Mary. God, Jehovah did, and created in her womb a cell, Blood cell. That Blood cell developed cells, and it brought forth a Man, which was Christ Jesus.
E-142 God Almighty, the Father, dwelt in Him. At the day of the baptism, when He received the Holy Ghost on the day when John baptized Him, John said, “I beheld and saw the Spirit of God, like a Dove, descending from Heaven, and a Voice saying, ‘This is My beloved Son in Whom I’m pleased to dwell in.’” Jesus said that God was with Him, “I and My Father are One. My Father dwells in Me.” Not Jesus, and being one with God; but God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself.
E-143 And you Oneness brethren, many of you get off the wrong track when you try to think that God is one like your finger is one. He can’t be His Own Father. He can’t be.
E-144 But He is God. God is Jehovah, the Spirit; Christ was the house that He dwelt in. And then He sacrificed this life, and, when He did, He gave up the Spirit. And through this unadulterated Blood that He shed, He sanctified me, that He might come Hisself and dwell in me and in you. And God is with us. That’s the Holy Ghost, which is the same, very same God, Jehovah God. “I’ll be with you, even in you, to the end of the world. And the things that I do, shall you do also.”
E-145 There is where the caterpillars begin to eat, the cankerworms, trying to make “God the Father” sitting in Glory, “God the Son” sitting upon some right hand He’s got.
E-146 The right hand of God, where the Bible said, “I looked up and seen Jesus standing at the right hand of God,” Philip, or Stephen when he was stoned. Don’t mean that God has got a right hand, and Jesus is standing up on top of His right hand. It means that He’s in the right hand of Power, authority. “All powers in Heavens and earth is given unto Me,” said Jesus. He was in authority. God was in Christ. He’s in—in Him. The Bible said, “In Him dwells the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” When you try to make three individual Gods, you’re as pagan as pagan can be.
E-147 Now, this is going to pinch. Fourthly. When they had three gods, they had to represent a baptism for him, for their three gods, so the devil blinded their eyes, of Matthew 28:19, “Go ye therefore, teach all nations, baptizing unto the Name of the Father, Son, Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe whatever I have done. Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world.” The devil blinded their eyes to That.
E-148 Now hold that. Now here is where I have to drive a nail, and it’s going to hurt, but I want you to listen. It’s the Truth. God help it to be…You just search the Scriptures. You find in the Bible where anybody was ever baptized in the Name of the “Father, Son, Holy Ghost,” you find one place anybody was ever baptized. Look, you say, “The devil can…” The devil takes that Scripture and makes It look like something that It isn’t.
E-149 Did not he say the same thing to Jesus? “It is written, ‘He’ll give His Angels charge, concerning, lest any time You dash Your foot against a stone.’” He never dashed His foot against a stone. But the devil was trying to make Him see something that the Scriptures didn’t say.
E-150 He was smart. He was filled with God. God was in Him. And God, being in a man, will make His revelation known. Certainly.
E-151 I’ll take you to Matthew 28:19, “Go ye therefore, teach all nations, baptizing them into the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.”
E-152 Now watch how the extreme tritheists from the Catholic church…Never was in the Bible, never was an ante-Nicene fathers’ creed, ante—ante-Nicene fathers. They were, every one, baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ, every one of them. It come through the Catholic church, come from there on out into the Protestant church.
E-153 Now, how can you see it without God opening your eye? You can’t. I pray that God will open your eyes to This. And just listen closely now.
E-154 Now I’m going to take your Scripture, Matthew 28:19, “Go ye, teach all nations, baptizing them into the Name of the Father, Son, Holy Ghost.”
How was you baptized, “In the name of the Father, in the name of the Son, in the name of the Holy Ghost”? That’s not even written in the Scripture. And I want some man…
E-155 You say, “The blessed holy trinity.” Find me the word “trinity” anywhere in the pages of God’s Bible. It’s a man-made scheme, an old dirty church rag wrapped around, to take the place of the sap Line of God’s Holy Spirit. No such a thing. There’s no such a thing. You find it and come to me. You’re duty bound to do it, as a Christian, if you find it. It’s not in God’s Holy Writings. And the “Father, Son, and Holy Ghost” is hatched out of hell, there’s no such a thing as three Gods.
E-156 Now, I believe in the Fatherhood of God. I believe in the Sonship of God. I believe in the Holy Ghost dispensation of God. But It’s the same God in every dispensation, not three Gods.
E-157 Now, “In the Name of the Father.” The Bible didn’t say, “Go baptize in the name of the Father, name of the Son, name of the Holy Ghost.” Said, “Go baptize,” Jesus said, looking back, “the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.” Not “name of the Father, name of the Son,” that’d make them individuals, but It’s not. “In the Name of the Father, and…” And is a conjunction, with their same subject. “In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” Not “in the name of the Father, name of the Son, name of the Holy Ghost.” But, “In the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.” See? Now look.
E-158 Here stands the anointed apostles going up to Pentecost, to receive the Holy Ghost. They went right straight to Pentecost and received the Holy Ghost. Now, the Church is inaugurated, what are we going to do? The first thing comes out, the Prescription has got to be made. Doctor Simon Peter has got to write the first Prescription, because Jesus gave him the pen. “I give unto thee the key, Peter. Whatever you bind, what Prescription you write here on earth, I’ll receive it in the Drugstore. Write this, and I’ll accept it.”
E-159 What did they do? When the men heard all this noise brought abroad like that, they said, “What meaneth this?” Others, speaking in tongues. They said, “We hear the wonderful works of God.”
E-160 What did Peter say? “Repent, every one of you, and be baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sin, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.”
E-161 Now what did they do? They added “Father, Son, Holy Ghost” here, which doesn’t go in the Prescription. That’s right. What else did they add? “You don’t have to get out and act like they did. It don’t give you joy and power, and speaking in tongues, and all these things. You don’t have to have it. Just make your confession, shake hand.” That’s some more poisoned dope of the devil. If it made them act like that when they took the Medicine, it’ll make you act the same way. Take His Prescription exactly right.
“What the palmerworm left, the caterpillar eaten.”
E-162 Now remember, if there never was a person ever baptized, in the Bible, any other way but in the Name of Jesus Christ, Jews and Gentiles, and outsiders and everything else, all had to come and be baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ. I challenge any man to show me where one person was ever baptized in the name of “Father, Son, Holy Ghost,” or for three hundred years after the—the death of the last apostle. Why, it’s plainer than my ten fingers before me. You can’t see it until God opens your eyes. Well, that, if that isn’t the right revelation, then why did Peter, had the same revelation, turn right back…Ten days after Jesus told him, “Go baptize in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,” Peter turned right back around, said, “Be baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ, every one of you.” Then this must be the same revelation he got. And the church out yonder, and it’ll be trinitarian, has got the wrong revelation, then they’re not using the sap Line. They took a rag and wrapped it around there, and it’s dropping the Life of God upon there. It’ll kill the patient! Oh, how many more things could we go to, in your creeds and things, what it’s done!
E-163 Let me just clear this little one up. I want you to go in and take your Bibles just a minute, so we going to just make it so simple the children understand It. Turn to Matthew, the 1st chapter. You got Matthew 28:19. Go to Matthew, the 1st chapter, the 18th verse.
E-164 Look here. I want you to look close. This is the Father, on my left. This is the Son, in the center. This is the Holy Ghost, on the right. [Brother Branham uses three objects to illustrate—Ed.] Now, Who is the Father of Jesus Christ? God, the Father. Is that right? You all believe that? [Congregation says, “Amen.”] I sure do. God, the Father, is the Father of the Lord Jesus. Father, Son, Holy Ghost.
E-165 Now I’m quoting Scripture. Look. You can look it up when you go home, or look it up now. “Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise,” Matthew 1. Look here. As I’ve often said, if you’re reading a storybook, and read over there in the back, just pick up Matthew 28:19 like this, in a storybook, “John and Mary lived happy ever after.” Who is John and Mary? Go back to the first of the book and find out who John and Mary is, if He said, “Go ye therefore, teach all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father.”
E-166 I want to ask you something. Is the “Father” a name? [Congregation says, “No.”—Ed.] It certainly isn’t. In the Name of the “Son,” is “Son” a name? [“No.”] It’s a title, just like “Father.” Is “Holy Ghost” a name? [“No.”] No, it’s a title. Holy Ghost is what It is.
E-167 You say, “Holy Ghost is a noun.” So is human. See, I am a human, but my name is not “human.”
E-168 That’s what It is. It is the Holy Ghost. That’s not Its Name; that’s what It is. Then if “Father” is no name, “Holy Ghost” is no name, and “Son” is no name, then what was the Name of the “Father, Son, Holy Ghost”? [Congregation says, “Lord Jesus Christ.”—Ed.] Certainly! Certainly! Now, see, “Father” is not a name.
E-169 Jesus said, “Go baptize them in the Name of the Father, of the Son, of the Holy Ghost.” Peter turned back around, said, “It’s the Name of ‘Jesus Christ.’” Now, that’s exactly what the procedure they followed all through the Bible.
E-170 Now what did they do? What has their translators, or the church men done? What’s the organizations done? Wrapped an old denominational rag around, in order to be popular with the rest. If I have to eat soda crackers and drink branch water, and be martyred, I’ll stand for God’s Truth and die on the stump. That’s right. There’s not no man, the pope of Rome, or no bishop or cardinal, can withstand That. Yes, sir. What’s the matter? What the palmerworm left, what the Methodist left, the Baptist eaten. What the Baptist left, the Pentecostal eaten. What a—what a—what a place! The Life lines are all gone. (This is just a minor thing.)
E-171 Now, Who is “Father, Son, Holy Ghost”? “Go ye therefore, teach all nations, baptizing them in Name of the Father, Son, Holy Ghost.” “Father” is no name, “Son” is no name, “Holy Ghost,” no name.
“What Name are you talking about?” Well, that’s like John and Mary, let’s go back to find out what it was.
“Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise. When His mother Mary was espoused to Joseph before she…Before they came together, she was found with a Child of the” (what?) “the Holy Ghost.”
E-172 I thought you said God was His Father. How can God be His Father, and the Holy Ghost be His Father? Now you see, you trinitarians, and holler at the Oneness? Pot can’t call kettle greasy. Look here. No. See what I mean?
E-173 The “Father.” He said, that, “The birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise. When the mother, Mary, was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with a Child of the Holy Ghost.” Then, “God the Father” had nothing to do with it? If—if God the Father, and God the Holy Ghost, isn’t the selfsame Person, then Jesus had two fathers, and our Saviour was an illegitimate child, born with two different spirits, or by two different spirits. “The birth of Jesus Christ was, He conceived by the Holy Ghost.” Do you believe that? [Congregation says, “Amen.”—Ed.] Then God the Father, and the Holy Ghost, is the selfsame Spirit, or He had two fathers.
E-174 “All this was done, might be fulfilled which was spoken of the prophet of the Lord, saying, ‘Behold, a virgin shall be with Child, and she shall bring forth a Child, and they…a Son, and they shall call His Name’” (this is Him) “‘JESUS, which is Emmanuel,’ which is, being interpreted…” What? [Congregation says, “‘God with us.’”—Ed.] Then what is the Name of the “Father, Son, Holy Ghost”? [“Lord Jesus Christ.”] Certainly. “His Name shall be called” [“‘JESUS,’”] “for He shall save His people from their sins.”
E-175 Now, what is “Father, Son, Holy Ghost”? The Lord Jesus Christ. What is the Name of It? Not name… “Father” is not a name, “Son” is not a name, “Holy Ghost” is not a name. But Jesus Christ is “Lord Jesus Christ,” which is the Father, Son, Holy Ghost, the three offices of God manifested in flesh, in one Person. Hallelujah! Brother, that’s the Truth. So help me, God, I’ll stand at the Day of Judgment on That.
E-176 What’s the cankerworm done? Got God the Father up in Heaven, God the Son sitting over here on a throne, and God the Ho-…No wonder we can get nowhere!
E-177 God is in you, with you. “I’ll be with you, even in you, to the end of the world. And the things that I do, shall you do also,” not another Person, but the same Holy Ghost, the same Person, same God. Jesus, the Lord Jesus Himself, was a Tabernacle in which God dwelt in, to manifest Himself, ’cause He was a Spirit. He was a Spirit.
E-178 Now, Jesus wasn’t Eternal. God is Eternal. Jesus now is Eternal because God has taken up a Body.
E-179 There was one time, before the foundation of the world, I was Eternal. When God thought of me, I was thought of before the foundation of the world, my name was put in the Lamb’s Book of Life, and so was yours, before there was even one grain of sand. How many knows that’s the Bible? [Congregation says, “Amen.”—Ed.] How many know that God put your name in the Lamb’s Book of Life before the foundation of the world? Then, in God’s thinking, we were born right then into His Kingdom.
E-180 One day there come a body through a holy wedlock, my father and mother. And they sired me, and here I come, William Branham, represented in a body of flesh. Now you know me as William Branham, a man. God knowed me as William Branham, a thought in His Own mind, and an expression.
E-181 What is a word? A word is a thought expressed. When He spoke and said, “Let him come,” I come. When He says, “Let him come again,” I’ll come again. Yes, sir. And so, you see, a thought; a word is a thought expressed.
E-182 God has already give the Word, only thing His thought was, and He expressed it. When He expresses it, it happens. “Let there be,” and there was. There is God, the omnipotent, all-powerful, almighty Jehovah. Now He’s represented.
Order now, to carry this out, they had to get a false baptism to make this.
You see, it’s hid. The world don’t see it, and it can’t be seen.
E-183 Now watch closely, while we have enough time yet to—to close and have the prayer line. All right. I was longer than I thought I was, on it. Just a minute now, I got something else I want to tell you.
E-184 Therefore, “Father, Son, Holy Spirit” is one true God. He has one Name. His Name is Jesus Christ. He was born Christ the Lord when He was born. He, Christ, means “the anointed One.” The Lord means “ownership.” He was “ownership” and “Lord.” And then God came down and dwelt in Him, which made Him both Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; Alpha, Omega, the Beginning and the Ending; He that Was, Which Is, and Shall Come; the Root and Offspring of David, both Root and Offspring of David; the Morning Star, the First and the Last. That’s Him. Oh!
E-185 “What the palmerworm has left.” How can you worship lest you know what you’re worshipping? How can you be spiritual lest you got the Holy Spirit in you? If you’re all tied up with a bunch of church creeds, will make you act like church people, and—and dignified and religious, and things like that. That’s all good, moral acts.
E-186 But, brother, you’ve got to be born again by the genuine Holy Ghost that only comes by the Word of God. And the true Word of God, when It comes into you, It’ll manifest the Truth. “He, the Holy Ghost, He’ll come. He’ll testify of Me. He’ll manifest Truth. He’ll take the things that I have showed you, show things I have said, and will show them to you. The Holy Ghost will.” What He’ll do, there He is.
E-187 What the palmerworm left, the caterpillar eat. And what the Catholic left, the Lutheran eat. And what the Lutheran eat, left, the Methodist eat. And what the Methodist left, the Pentecostal eaten. Where’s it got to? All this conglomeration of sin, all these things, teachings, other things we could say, oh, my, shaking hands, sprinkling water.
E-188 Whoever heard of sprinkling? Show it to me in the Bible. Whoever heard of pouring water? Show it to me in the Bible. Baptism come, the word baptizo, which means to be “buried and covered up.” Right. That’s the Truth of God’s Word. Oh, we had time, we could go on and on with the false things.
E-189 I say this, my beloved people. Listen to me. I’ll stand with you someday in the Day of Judgment. I’ll have to answer. I’ll never answer to a creed. (So help me, God!) I’ll answer to the Bible. That’s the Book I’ll stand by.
E-190 There is no place in the Bible where that they ever received the Holy Ghost without having emotions, speaking with tongues, and shoutings, and praises of God, and prophecies, and manifestations. They never did just walk up and shake hands with the preacher and walk away.
E-191 There’s no place in the Bible they ever did receive, ever was baptized, outside being baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ.
E-192 There never was no place in the Bible they ever taught trinity. It was always a “one God.” “Hear ye, O Israel, I’m the Lord your God, one God! Thou shall have no other gods before Me. I’m the Lord thy God.” Not a Father, and a Son, and a Holy Ghost, but “I’m God!” Forever, He’s God! He always was God. He always will be God.
E-193 And when a denomination will drop you, when you’re coming to a congregation and try to show brotherly love, even with their denominations, to try to pick up and save what you can, pull them in, let God take the rest of it. And because that you stand on Bible Truths, they excommunicate you. It can’t be nothing but the low-down trick of the devil, to get the children from coming in to see the meeting and to be saved. That’s right.
E-194 There’s the solid Rock of God’s Word. [Brother Branham knocks on the pulpit three times—Ed.] I’ll take any person, anytime that they want to, and go with them in brotherly love, and I want you to show me one thing that I have said that isn’t the Bible Truth. Yes, sir. It’s true. Now, ’cause you stand for It, you’re excommunicated. I expect it to be that way. God said it would be that way.
E-195 They did Him the same way. “Where did You get the learnings? What school did You come from? What are You, Pharisee or Sadducee?” He was the Son of the living God, He taken no sides with none of them.
E-196 So help me, God, let me have gumption enough, let me have principle enough, let me be man enough, let me be Christ enough, to stand alone (if I stand, have to stand that way) and tell the Truth, and stand. Yes, sir. I’d rather preach the Gospel to five people, ’an have the millions that does hear. Tell the Truth. I’ve never compromised. I wanted this, because God had told me these great signs and things that’s being produced, like the manifestation of His resurrection, and so forth, it’s for the Church. Those poor people out there, and bound in them creeds and things, they been so indocumated, like embalmed.
E-197 God bless your heart. I won’t leave you in that condition. I’ll tell you what God said, “But I will restore to you all that the caterpillar has eaten, all that the cankerworm has eaten, all that the palmerworm has eaten. I will restore, saith the Lord!” So help me, I make this prophecy. Before the Coming of the Lord, the true apostolic Faith, the true apostolic Teaching, the true Bible Spirit, the true, It’s on Its road now, trying to eat Its way up, grow out again.
E-198 The Pentecostal had it, to start with. What did they do? Drawed a little rind around It, begin to nominate. And He cut It right off. That’s exactly right. Here come along, when the Lord sent these gifts, the humble little gifts that He give me. They keep coming, they want me be that latter-rain outpour; made it an organization out of that. Want me come join the Assemblies.
E-199 I’ve stood right in the midst of every branch that’s hanging out there, right here at the stump of the Tree, and saying, “This is the Foundation. Cut off these old rag lines here, so the Life can get into you, then you’ll have prophecies, you’ll have discernment, you’ll have Spirit, you’ll have power. You’ll have the restoration of the true Church, when you get back to the true Vine and the true Life.”
E-200 It can’t come through a rag that drops It right down, and says, “It was another day. Is another day.” It’s forever the same. He’s Alpha and Omega; the Beginning and the End. Absolutely. You’ll have to come back to the Foundation, for, “Upon this rock I’ll build My Church, and the gates of hell can’t prevail against It.”
E-201 God bless you, friends. I know you think I’m just a little bit noisy, a little out of order, but I’m not. I think I’m in order with this Word.
E-202 The—the Spirit of God is here, the same Spirit that wrote the Bible. If the Spirit that wrote the Bible, will say “amen” every time the Bible’s Words is spoke. If, there, everybody was baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ, the true Spirit of God will say, “Amen. That’s the Truth.” And the Bible said, “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday and forever,” “I’ll be with you always, even in you, to the end of the world,” the true Spirit of God will say, “Amen.” And if that is the true Spirit of God, then the true powers and manifestations of the Spirit will manifest Itself with this true Spirit. Judge ye the Word that you hear. Judge It by the Bible. Watch Its actions. Watch Its works.
E-203 Is there candidates here to be baptized, that’s never been baptized, wants to be baptized? Raise your hand. All right.
E-204 If there’s no baptizings then, all right, then we’ll pray for the sick. Is there anybody here that’s sick? Raise up your hand, wants to be prayed for. How many here that’s strangers among us, and wants to be prayed for; I don’t know you, and I’m strange, I don’t know you? All right. Sick and afflicted, I don’t know you.
E-205 If God is God, if He’s God of the Word that I preach; Jesus said, “The things that I do shall you also.” Is that right? Jesus said, “The things that I do shall you also. More than this will you do, ’cause I go to the Father.” What was it? Turn from a Man, a body, back into the Pillar of Fire again. When Paul met Him on the road to Damascus, what was He? Pillar of Fire. That right? Certainly was. What is He today? What is He in that picture?
You say, “Oh, you can say that, Brother Branham.”
E-206 If that truly is the truth of God, if It is the same Pillar of Fire, the same Jesus Christ, I claim His Spirit come into me, It’ll do the same thing He did. It’ll agree with every Word He said, no matter what creeds the denominationals will say. It’ll speak His Word. He spoke It.
E-207 Their unbelief didn’t stop Him. Their creeds and denomination, He never took no side with any of them. He preached the unadulterated Gospel that He had heard from God. He stood alone. Certainly, He did. On Calvary, there wasn’t even a one would stand by Him. He stood alone.
E-208 If you amount to anything, you’ll stand for God, you’ll stand alone. It’s you! It’s not the world, it’s not your church, it’s not your denomination. It’s you, between you and God. I don’t care what the…
E-209 The Branham Tabernacle can do what they want to. I want them to believe God; I want them to come along. But if they don’t, I’m not going to compromise with them in their little petty thing. I’ll stand for God.
E-210 “The Methodist. What will you do, Brother Branham? The—the trinitarian Pentecostal?” I proved I love them. I’ve went to them, and sent into the Assemblies of God and the church of God.
E-211 “And if the Oneness, you disagree with the Oneness because of their ‘one’ standing, like that.” Yes, sir. Jesus had a Father. He was God. They baptize in the Name of “Jesus.” I baptize in the Name of “the Lord Jesus Christ.” There’s many Jesuses, but there’s only one Lord Jesus Christ. See? Not in “Jesus” Name. But in the Name of “the Lord Jesus Christ,” that’s Father, Son, Holy Ghost.
E-212 Lord, “Lord said unto My Lord, ‘Sit on the right hand.’” Son, Jesus. Christ, Logos that went out of God, in the beginning. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. There you are.
E-213 Oh, I’m so happy for it! My heart just rejoices! And to know that His Spirit, the Spirit that wrote the Word, agrees with the Word, proves the Life line. It comes in, manifests Itself. God be with you. It’s Jesus Christ the Son of God. I’ve told the Truth about His Word.
Now you, you tabernacle people, I pray for you at other times. We’re late. I was over a little bit, run over a little bit. I was expecting a bunch to be baptized.
E-214 Look. If the Holy Spirit is here, we’ll…He’ll—He’ll heal you. I want those people who are strangers in our gates, that’s—that’s sick and afflicted. And now if I’ve told the Truth about God, and these people told the truth, that I don’t know them, and they’re sick and afflicted; if the Holy Spirit remains the same, He can reveal to me. If that’s the same Holy Ghost, and It’s connected with the same stump down here that the cankerworms has eat off of, but there’s a little piece of bark running down there, is connecting this together, it’ll work just like it did down there.
E-215 Church creeds will say, “Oh, that ain’t right. That’s mental telepathy. That’s the—the devil. That’s fortune-telling.”
E-216 They said the same about Him. “If they call the Master of the house ‘Beelzebub,’ how much more they call His disciples?” Right. Still that don’t stop it. That just increases it, makes it go on.
E-217 Now, is He still God? Is He the same yesterday, today, and forever? Does He honor His Word? He does.
E-218 And I constrain every one of you, if you’ve never been baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ, be baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ. I don’t care what the old church rag says. That’s a denomi-…
E-219 And I know men that I brought right in my study, and study. Around good men, I’d say, “Come here a minute. You show me where you were baptized in the name of the ‘Father, Son, Holy Ghost,’ if that’s Scriptural.”
E-220 And when he’s pinned down, say, “I know it, Brother Branham, but don’t give this away on me.” See?
E-221 I said, “Support your doctrine, show me where one. Everybody in the Bible, they…”
E-222 Some baptize, in no name at all, they had to come and be baptized over again, before they get the Holy Ghost. How many knows that? [Congregation says, “Amen.”—Ed.] Paul passed through the upper coasts of Ephesus, he found the Baptists. They had a good…They had a good pastor. He was a converted lawyer, Apollos. And he said to them, “Have you received the Holy Ghost since you believed?”
E-223 They said, “We know not whether there be any Holy Ghost.”
E-224 Said, “Then how was you baptized?” It says in the King James, “unto what.” Read it in the original, says “how.” “Unto what” means the same thing. “How was you baptized?”
E-225 They said, “We been baptized to John, the same man baptized Jesus.” That’s a good baptizing. “Walked out in the water, the same one that baptized…John.”
E-226 Well, Paul said, “That won’t work anymore. That ain’t no good no more. He’s done come, been crucified. Cause John baptized unto repentance, not remission of sins, saying you should believe on Him that’s come, Jesus Christ.” And when they heard this, they walked out into the water and was rebaptized again, in the Name of Jesus Christ. Paul laid his hands on them, the Holy Ghost come on them. They prophesied and spoke in tongues. That right? Paul constrained men who had been baptized by the same man that baptized Jesus, told them they’d have to be baptized over, because they wasn’t baptized in the Name of the Lord Jesus.
I’ve got a right to say the same thing. It’s the same Doctrine.
E-227 Now, what did Paul say in Galatians 1:8? Now, he done that. How many knows that’s the Truth, say “amen”? [Congregation says, “Amen.”—Ed.] And he said, “If an Angel from Heaven,” let alone a preacher out of a church or a denomination! “If an Angel from Heaven comes and preaches any other Gospel than This, let him be accursed. As I have said before, so say I again, though we or an Angel from Heaven preach any other Gospel than This that you have already heard.” See where the cankerworm has eaten It down? See? “But if an—an Angel preaches any other thing than what This is, let him be unto you accursed.” That’s right. Let him be cursed. Don’t even pay any attention to him.
E-228 And if a pastor, if a missionary, if a—a evangelist, or anybody, tries to constrain you to be baptized any other way but in the Name of Jesus Christ, let me say with Paul, “Let him be accursed.” If any man tells you, “Shake hands with the preacher and you’ll receive the Holy Ghost,” let him be accursed. For, the Holy Ghost is a Birth. They want It self-styled.
E-229 Anybody knows, I said before, a birth is a mess, I don’t care where it’s at. If a birth is in the barn, it’s a mess. If it’s in the house, it’s a mess. If it’s in the hospital, in a pink, decorated room, it’s a mess. A birth is always a mess.
E-230 And the new Birth is nothing less. It’s a mess; crying and boo-hooing, just grunting, stammering lips, and all kinds of going-on. It’s a mess, but it brings Life. Only way that you can do it.
E-231 Don’t you take no shaking-hands, or putting your name on some church, go up and say, “I believe in God the Father Almighty, Creator of heavens and earth; and Jesus Christ, the Son; the holy Roman Catholic church; and the communion of saints.” If you do, you’re witnessing you’re a spiritualist.
E-232 Anything that communes with the dead, I don’t care what it is, is a devil. “There’s only one Mediator between God and men, that’s the Man Jesus Christ.” And He is not dead, but He’s alive. And He’s here now; He arose from the dead. All the other Catholic saints and Protestant saints, and whatever more, is dead and in the grave. They may be in Glory. If they was saints, they are There. I don’t care where they’re at, if you commune with them, you’re absolutely transgressing the laws of God and going through a devil. It’s not a saint. Certainly. The Bible said so.
E-233 The palmerworm eat that off, too, but God will restore it back to a true, living Spirit of God that don’t communicate with some Saint Jude, and Saint This, and Saint That, and Saint Cecelia, and all these others, and some of these saints. It’ll be the Spirit of Jesus Christ that’ll come back and manifest Himself and do the very same thing. “I will restore, saith the Lord.” And I thank God, today, upon the Church branch up here, there’s a little Life begin slipping up through There. It’s manifesting Himself. God will restore the full Church back to Its right stature again, before the Coming of the Lord.
E-234 Lord Jesus, the service is Yours. I’m only responsible for the Word, to preach It. Now it’s been done. It’s in Your hands, Lord. I pray that in Christ’s Name, that You’ll receive these things, and in the light It’s been preached in, Lord. May, if any conscience is hurt, may it be healed by the Balm of Gilead. May those, Lord, sitting here that’s been sprinkled, poured, or immersed in three gods, let them see their error, Lord. I can…no matter how much I’d preach.
E-235 When You preached and done the same thing, and yet their eyes were blind. “No man can come to Me except My Father draws him.” And though You had preached and done the miracles, and proved that You was the Messiah, yet they could not believe, because Isaiah said that they’d be that way.
E-236 And I might add this, that, today, though You have done so many things, You’ve brought Your true Word out, bring It back in the apostolic foundation, lay It down to a challenge, that It’s the Truth, and then You come right back behind It and perform the same kind of a miracles that You did when You were here on earth. What happens? They can’t. Because, Paul said, by the Spirit (like Isaiah said), “They’ll be heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, and despisers of those that are right; having a form of godliness, but denying the Power thereof. From such turn away.”
E-237 Lord, I pray today that You’ll manifest Yourself and—and make Your—make Your Word live among us just now. For we ask it in Jesus’ Name. If You’ll do it, Lord, all of them will believe. We’ll walk from this tabernacle this morning, believing that our soul is delivered, if You’ll just (believe) send it to them, Lord, and speak to every heart, while we watch for Your discernment.
Let the Holy Spirit, the true Life of God, come into this little part of a branch that’s left. O Lord, energize it with Your Spirit. May it…It’s bearing record, Lord. Bearing record, Your Word is right. Every man is a liar; You’re Truth. No matter how many turns against; if it takes martyrdom, it takes excommunication, it takes having campaigns, to where you have to just take one man and stand upon…Those poor children of God, they’ll come out, anyhow, regardless. They’ll come, anyhow, to hear.
E-238 “My sheep know My Voice, a stranger they’ll not follow.” Your Voice, the way It called Your sheep the first time, It calls again. And a stranger they’ll not follow. If Your Voice, that called Your sheep, said, “Repent, every one of you, and be baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ,” Your sheep heard It. Your sheep hears the same thing today. If one said, “Oh, that’s—that’s antichrist stuff. Be baptized, name of ‘Father, Son, Holy Ghost,’” a stranger they’ll not follow. They’ll know Your Voice. They’ll watch for Your works. I pray, Father, that You’ll grant all. Your Voice has spoke, may Your works follow. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.
[A brother speaks in another tongue. Brother Branham pauses—Ed.] Now, friend, the Holy Spirit moving.
E-239 Now I’m going to turn my back on this audience. Now, I don’t want you people that’s here at this tabernacle; I better look this way. I don’t want any of the tabernacle people; I want you that’s never been here before, or you know that I don’t know you. Out-of-town people, raise your hands again, where I can see where you’re at, that you’re sick. Let the Holy Spirit move now. Now, to you people, I don’t know you.
E-240 Have you got prayer cards? Did they give out any prayer…[Blank spot on tape—Ed.]…they’ve touched.
E-241 And let Him do it at least two times. The Bible said, “In the mouth of…” How many witnesses? “Two or three.” Is that right? [Congregation says, “Amen.”—Ed.] “Two or three witnesses, let every word be established.” Take at least two or three of you, then the rest of you believe. Whatever you have need of, you believe it right now.
E-242 Will you do it, if He’ll do it? Raise your hand, say, “I’ll—I’ll—I’ll take it by faith, just raise up my hand.” Will you do it? Raise your hands, everybody in here. How many in here that say, “I’ve never seen it before. I’ll take it by faith, too”? Raise your hand, say, “I’ll take it by faith.” Look here.
E-243 Now you see where I stand? There’s a challenge here. Now, if He’s God, He’ll manifest Hisself. If this isn’t Truth, then I’m a liar and a false prophet. You should never come to hear me again, because I’m a false prophet; I give a witness of Christ that isn’t right. You can’t do it and prove the teaching I been…[Blank spot on tape—Ed.]
E-244 You come. You’re from here, the tabernacle, aren’t you, lady? You setting there with your hand up, a little white hat on. Yeah. You’re from here. [Brother Branham pauses—Ed.] See, when I see that there, the people are pulling that vision. I can see It standing right over them.
E-245 But I’m waiting somebody that I don’t know. [Brother Branham pauses—Ed.] Here, you from down at the tabernacle here, lady that’s got your handkerchief up like this, sitting right here? Are you from…You, you’re—you’re from out of town? Stand up on your feet a minute. While you were sitting there, praying, there was some odd feeling come over you, all of a sudden. That was the Angel of the Lord. Now He’s standing right by you now. Now there’s something, that you’ve touched Him. I don’t know what it is. But you are from out of town. You could be from Louisville, or Tennessee, or wherever you might be. I don’t know. God does know that. But if He will reveal to me what you…the secret of your heart, make known your—your desire, or something another, will you believe, accepting the Word, doing everything just as…
E-246 Now all you people, looking right at the woman, will see. Now let the Holy Spirit, if He’s still the Holy Spirit, let Him reveal it. Don’t be afraid. He’s God. He keeps His Word, every Word.
E-247 The woman is suffering with a breakdown, a nervous condition. That’s right. Raise up your hand. You got heart trouble, also. That’s a nervous heart. Hurts you worse when you lay down, smothers you more. You’ve had an operation. That operation isn’t healed yet. That’s right. Isn’t it? No, you’re not from Ohio…You are from Ohio. You are from Ohio. Yes, sir. You got a burden on your heart. It’s some girl, or something. It’s a daughter, missing. That’s THUS SAITH THE LORD. Go, receive what you asked for, lady. You touched Something. Do you believe?
Who else was it had their hands up [Blank spot on tape—Ed.] in here?
E-248 You believe God can reveal to me the secret of your heart? You believe it’s the same God I been preaching about this morning? You got a dark shadow over you, it’s cancer. You believe that God will heal you? You do? All right, sir, then you go back to Ohio where you come from, Lebanon, go back and be made well, believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. Go, believe.
E-249 This little lady sitting right here, kind of…Got some kind of skin rashing. Stand up, honey. You believe? Kind of shocked you a little bit, didn’t it? All right. It’s…You’re going to get over it. You’re going to be all right. I see you, later on. Go home, be well.
E-250 Who was that person that stood up just a few minutes ago? Some man back there stood up, somewhere. You with your hand up, stand up to your feet. You believe Jesus Christ can tell me what your trouble is? You accept it? [Brother Branham pauses—Ed.] Believe that knot will go off of your neck? Your wife sitting there by you, suffering with a nervous condition. That’s right, too. You’re all from Ohio. Put your hand over on her there, brother.
E-251 Lord, may they be healed, go back to their home, rejoice and be made well, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
E-252 [Blank spot on tape—Ed.]…somebody next to you. Take my Word; I’m telling you God’s Word. You believe It now? All that believe, say, “Amen.” [Congregation says, “Amen.”] The Word has been made manifest. It’s the Truth.
Now bow your heads.
E-253 Lord, I come to Thee in the Name of Jesus, praying for these people. It’s late, Lord. And it’s really later than we think. It’s the Coming of the Lord, is at hand. We pray that Your mercies will be extended. Give unto them, Lord, their healing. I now condemn the devil, on the Light of God’s Word; that He is the Son of God, that Jesus Christ the Son of God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, that water baptism in the Name of Jesus Christ is the correct…